Netherlands | Several people taken hostage in Ede, three young people released

(The Hague) Three people were released on Saturday following a hostage-taking still in progress in a locality in the Netherlands whose city center was sealed off, announced Dutch police who did not moment detected no sign of a “terrorist act”.

“Three hostages have just been released. However, the situation is not over,” police said in a statement published on the social network X.

Images broadcast by public broadcaster NOS showed three young people leaving the building with their hands in the air.

The number of hostages held at the Petticoat café since the beginning of the morning is officially unknown, with local media reporting four to five people.

Previously, the police announced that a “hostage-taking involving several people [était] in progress in a building in the center of the town of Ede”, located about a hundred kilometers east of The Hague.

“We see there are a lot of questions about motive. For the moment, there is nothing to indicate that this is a terrorist act,” she added.

A security cordon was set up around a cafe and residents of around 150 houses were placed in safety, according to Dutch law enforcement.

The local municipality said on its website that the city center had been closed and that riot police and explosives experts were at the scene.

Residents are urged to avoid the city center and rail traffic has been diverted due to the incident.

The Netherlands has experienced a series of terrorist attacks and plots, but not on the scale experienced by other European countries, such as France or Britain.

In 2019, the country was mourned by a shooting on a tram in the city of Utrecht, which left four people dead.

A man of Turkish origin, identified as Gokmen Tanis, later admitted to having had a terrorist motive for the attack which led to the closure of the country’s fourth largest city.

Also in 2019, Dutch police charged two suspected jihadists with planning a terrorist attack involving suicide bombers and car bombs.

Authorities said an attack had been planned that year.

A young Afghan identified as “Jawed S.” stabbed two American tourists at Amsterdam Central Station in 2018, later telling judges he wanted to “protect the Prophet Muhammad”.

The attack occurred a day after far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders announced he was canceling plans to organize a drawing competition to caricature the Prophet Muhammad.

At the time, Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid urged Muslims to attack Dutch troops after “this country’s hostile act [les Pays-Bas] against all Muslims.

In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was assassinated in Amsterdam by a man with links to a Dutch Islamist terrorist network.